a-HA!

It's cold here. Really, extra special cold. Especially in The Shed, which has but a wee electric space heater to take the edge off. It's usually somewhere in the 50s when there are no people or appliances to warm it up. It's no fun trying to make fingers go under such circumstances.

And that's when it's a good idea to kick back with your tab and your CD and figure out where your thinking is off in translating the little pictures into music. Which is exactly what I started to do with "Hard Ain't It Hard" and "Old Joe Clark." I listened to them both while starting at and occasionally making notes upon the tablature. The tune for "Old Joe Clark" is, after several dozen listens, much easier to pick out and easier to pick in general since it's all on the first string. It's weird but catchy. "Hard Ain't It Hard" is (surprise!) harder. I keep getting lost in the flurry of notes and can't anchor myself well enough to really connect with the basic tune. So I'll keep listening to that one until it clicks, but in the meantime I've got the other to play.

And play I have, but still I have a hard time letting go of the strange rhythm I started with so that I can play it like it sounds. I just realized that what I need to do is slow it way, way down and come at it like I've never played Old Joe Clark in my life. I'm having remarkably little trouble adapting to the gussied up version of "Cripple Creek" because a) I started with the very basic tune and then added more notes and b) I started off slow but accurate in terms of rhythm. All this is rather a no-brainer, but I haven't thought about how music and music learning works since I flubbed my way through flute lessons in the fourth grade. It should go without saying that that was not my finest hour.

Speaking of "Cripple Creek," I still need to calm down about slides. I play them so short that it just sounds like a giraffe that's dying in cute little sound bytes. They should sounds much nicer. I can play them nicer, I just need to calm. down. srsly.

So I continue slowly in remedial banjo. And intermediate knitting, since I would like something nice and woollen for my hands in these cold, cold times.

Tight-ish

I did sit down yesterday to tighten Sea Monkey's head, but I forgot to print out anything that had the diagram of which nuts to tighten in which order, or even any vague recommendations on such adjustments, so I just kinda tightened everything a little bit (about a half turn, I'd say) in something like the pattern I remembered (I hope) from The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo.

I am a weenie, though, and while I did tighten some, it's not really obvious. The bridge is still rather sunken in. I think I'm still a good night of sleep away from working up the nerve to do it right. I didn't rupture anything, though, so that's worth something.

Practice was brief, but consisted of "Good Night Ladies" and "Cripple Creek" and some forward and backward roll exercises that I think sound pretty. Nothing fancy, just working those joints and fingertips to get 'em ready for some serious practice tomorrow. After the aforementioned good night of sleep.